Friday, January 4, 2013

BATON ROUGE, Louisiana -- The Southern men’s basketball team not only won its Southwestern Athletic Conference opener Wednesday night, the Jaguars put on the kind of show against Texas Southern that kept fans in the F.G. Clark Activity Center glued to their seats.

After leading 2-0 in the opening minute, Southern wasn’t ahead again in the 63-57 win until 9 minutes, 37 seconds remained. The Jaguars were rightfully giddy as they celebrated the latest step in their fast start, moving above the .500 mark by surviving a game Texas Southern led by 13 points late in the first half.

What worries coach Roman Banks, however, is how little time they have to turn the page — and who they’re playing next.

Southern (7-6, 1-0) returns to action at 7:30 p.m. Friday when Prairie View A&M (5-9, 0-1) visits in a game that matches the Jaguars against the only team picked ahead of them in the SWAC preseason poll.

“Now we’ve got to bounce back, find some energy from somewhere and regroup,” Banks said. “We’ve got the team picked to win the league coming in here.”